FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

Scripture References – Isaiah 50:4-9; Luke 19:28-40

Suffering is no confirmation of obedience to God. A human being with a conscience and a normal range of emotion is equipped to suffer. There is suffering that comes to us precisely because we are God’s people trying to do good in God’s world. We can rail and rebel against it, but it is part and parcel of life. So do not let suffering lead us to some false and proud sense of martyrdom. Most of us cringe at the thought of suffering. We may not run from it, but we won’t beg for it either. We are surprised, then, when we come upon a person who actually enjoys suffering, tries for it, and interprets much of life from that perspective. This person uses the unfortunate as some kind of a reminder or badge which signifies “hurting for God.” No one has yet asked that suffering be enjoyed.

Listen, children, adolescents, and adults: Living the good life is no guarantee that your way will be free of encounter with pain and difficulty. Being a devout Christian will not always bring enough good to outweigh the bad for you. Rather, through a careful study of the foundations of Christianity and—more powerfully—through the consistent living out of a relationship with God, we will find more often than not a correlation between obedience to God and suffering than we will find between obedience to God and success.

When Jesus proceeded into Jerusalem a few days before His death, He believed that He was placing His life at risk because He was being obedient to God, not something new for this young man, but a way He had lived consistently. And yet, what awaited Him there in Jerusalem? What was in store for this man who honestly only did good deeds for God’s sake? Nothing but suffering. Nothing, but suffering! Some reward, huh?

In the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth we see the epitome of the connection between obedience to God and suffering. We have taught, and we have desperately wanted to believe that these were mutually exclusive; at times, we have even needed to believe it. But it isn’t true. Obedience and suffering are wed in lives like Jesus’ life. And as He is our Lord and our example, our obedience to God will in some way be wed to suffering too.

I’m not suggesting that if you are God’s person you should be prepared in case suffering should come your way; I’m not suggesting that you brace yourself to prevent a possible brush with the unexpected. What I’m saying for all of us to hear is that obedience to God means suffering. Count on it. It may be that those who oppose God will actually turn on us, bringing us that kind of suffering; I’d say this is likely if we ever roam out of protected Christian environments. Or, the suffering we can expect may mean that as obedient children of God our hearts grow tender like God’s heart and thus connect us to those who struggle and lose so much and hurt so often that we suffer with them. Walt Whitman, again, without any intention of describing this kind of Christian suffering did a powerful job of it anyway when he said:

“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels. I become the wounded person.”

Jesus in His obedience to God knew those kinds of suffering: the pain of direct attack and the pain of identification. Jesus, no doubt, experienced all kinds of suffering.

When the prophet Isaiah wrote about the seemingly anonymous Servant of the Lord with whom Jesus would later be identified, Isaiah didn’t overlook the suffering in the life of this person whose experience either foreshadowed or hauntingly foretold the plight of the one we name as our Lord. Isaiah, speaking for this Suffering Servant, said: “I offered my back to those who beat me and my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard. I did not hide my face from mockery and spitting.” – Isaiah 50:6 (NLT). As Jesus rode the donkey into Jerusalem, this was precisely the fate that awaited Him; taunting, beating, being spit upon, and more. Yes, much more. The prophet set this account of suffering in a longer monologue which gave some explanation for why and how the Servant of the Lord endured such suffering. He explained in the Servant’s words:

The Sovereign LORD has spoken to me, and I have listened. I have not rebelled or turned away. . . . Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do his will. And I know that I will not be put to shame. He who gives me justice is near. – Isaiah 50:5, 7-8 (NLT).

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Where noted, Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation®, NLT © 2015 by Tyndale House.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture References – Isaiah 50:4-9; Luke 19:28-40

One of the lies we tell children in our culture is that if they are “good” and do what is “right” then they will not be hurt. This principle is true at first, when stated as a way to get them to keep hands off hot stoves, but we never get around to tell them that the application is limited. No, we let them go on thinking that the same principle applies in broader relational and spiritual spheres as well. We let them believe that if they are honest and tell the truth, good will always come to them. When they become older, we lead them to believe that if they speak out and stand up for what is morally acceptable, both heaven and earth will smile on them. We tell them that if they will take our advice about which good paths to follow, they will be able to move through life virtually unscathed by forces of evil and persons who see life differently than they do; even by their enemies. We tell them in the church that if they will always do what God wants them to do, they will be shielded by God’s protective care.

So in essence, we lie to our children, and one of the reasons we lie to them about this matter in particular is that, though we know better, we don’t want to believe differently ourselves. We keep wanting to believe that if we simply do the right thing and act in a Christian manner, everything will be all right. Whatever would hurt or frighten us will go away. While our reluctance to deal squarely with the facts is understandable, we are not doing ourselves or our children any favors with our coverups.

Because we lie to them, children become adolescents and then they progress to adults who are naive enough to believe in this kind of fairy-tale world. Many of us were those children who became adults still trying to live in make-believe. Somebody told us—somebody we trusted—that if we would be careful to do the right things, we’d be happy, be safe, prosper, and not get hurt. When the negative, unfortunate, painful, and tragic invaded our lives, the only conclusion we could draw was that we had done something wrong, but for the life of us we didn’t know what it was. We all know that lonely feeling, don’t we?

“What is it? What did I do to deserve what is happening to me?” After the exhausting inventory of personal performance is taken time after agonizing time, and we find no great lapses of moral degradation or sinful rebellion, we are left with no recourse but to turn on ourselves as inherently evil, those who have told us the lies, or even God for not delivering what we mistakenly believe has been promised. By this point in our lives, we are rarely capable of questioning the formula we have memorized: “Good deeds keep bad things away from us and bring only good to us.” Isn’t that it? Isn’t that the “truth” we deliver? “Good deeds keep bad things away from us and bring only good to us.”

For those who mature emotionally and spiritually without that kind of catastrophe, a kind of crisis of suffering which blows away our formula leaving nothing in its place, there is still a painful process of observing that “being good” and “doing good” will not always bring us good. There is no honest argument for pursuing a moral way of living, yes a Christlike way of living based on some presumption that good living wards off bad. Life just doesn’t work that way. We may be meticulous in doing what is ethically appropriate and Christlike in most every situation that confronts us only to be overtaken by events and circumstances that are anything but good. Some reward, huh?

At some point we have to come to the vital realization that suffering is not given out by the supernatural forces in the universe which have chosen us as unsuspecting and unfortunate victims. Suffering is common to humanity, and a good deal of suffering which we must endure has nothing to do with our religious commitments or the lack of them. As Walt Whitman worded it in his poem of universal human experience, Song of Myself:

“Agonies are one of my changes of garments.”

Being good people, being God’s obedient people, does not remove us from the plight of being human—with all its joys and all its pitfalls.

To Be Continued

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.